Travel bag

I finally got around to using my new beautiful Muud Lexi travel knitting bag on a recent trip.

Lexi Case

Knitting bags

I these photos of how I was going to use the case, it was the perfect size for bringing on the plane as my carry-on. It even fit my book on the top and closed up nicely.

It was great for knitting, as my yarn stayed snugly in the case and I could keep it in my foot space on the airplane. However, the bright idea to put the needles in the lid did not work as planned. I lost abut 1/2 of my Rosewood size 1 needles on the way out, I am not even sure where they were lost, probably in the waiting area at the airport. At first, I thought that it was because they were so thin.

On the way home, I put the remaining size 1’s in the zipper area, and thought I was good. Not so. Each time I opened the lid, one or two of the other needles came out and rolled onto the floor. Luckily, nobody was in the seat between us, and my husband was able to rescue them. Their website shows DPN’s in there, but larger sizes than what I use.

Now this is how I am using the pockets, seems to be much more secure with a pencil, nail file, and crochet hook(s).

For the trip out, I had wound up a large skein of Guage Dye Works Colorwheel. One of my absolute favorites, as I love a rainbow as much as my Granddaughter.

I had ordered the larger skein with the intention of making a shawl. The pattern had to be really simple, since the color changes were so beautifully dramatic. I ended up choosing Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/boneyard-shawl

Here is a preview of where I am on this. The shawl pattern calls for a reverse stockinette stitch every 12 rows. I opted to do it every time the color changed. Since I am getting closer to the grey section, so I am now on all garter stitch. This is turning out really pretty. The back side is just as beautiful as the front.

#GuageDyeWorks

#Colorwheel

#Boneyardshawl

#StephenWest

Solidarity

The world events are troubling and I am at a loss as to what to do, other than emailing reps and donating money.

Then I remembered the yarn that I did not know what to do from the Good Vibes Yarn Tour. I had found uses for the previous yarns from that club, and this just sat.

So, I wound this up and searched for a pattern.

A friend had loaned me the Laine 52 Weeks of Shawls book, and I found the pattern Limelight that seemed perfect, and the yardage that I had worked well.

And, so I started knitting. The directions in the book are not well written, they need to identify the repeat area more clearly, and to state how many repeats there are in each section. I misread it at first, and had to tear it out. I did contact the designer, Anna Johanna, and she replied right away.

The colors are working well in this pattern, however I am not happy with the blue yarn, there are many sections where little to no color was applied. I would not purchase this yarn again. Not sure who will receive this yarn, but knitting it is my little prayer for peace with each stitch.

#prayingforUkraine

#sunflowersandsky

#goodvibesyarntour2021

Vortex Crafting

-21F air temperature and -50 wind chill.  School was cancelled for the past couple of days, and I chose to hunker down in the house and cook, clean, sort and most importantly craft.

I am trying to dedicate myself this year to finishing as many long ignored projects as possible.  One at a time.  If I no longer like them, or think that they will not fit, I am prepared to frog them, no matter how far along.  Last year I did fairly well at starting to attack some of these projects, and I must admit that it felt really good.  Not only does it clean up my crafting space, but clears up unwanted craft baggage.

First I decided that I needed to finish this shawl.

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I started it in the late summer of 2015, and was moving along nicely.  That is until I ran out of the handspun yarn.  Being a gradient, I needed to order an additional 2 braids to finish it.  While waiting, I lost focus, and had little time for spinning up the yarn needed.

Here is where it has sat for over 4 years, I am ashamed to admit.  The color is Thistle, a gradient by my favorite dyer, Fiber Optic.

So, while it took a bit of re-education, I finally spun the additional 2 braids over the past couple of weeks, making great progress while housebound.

Plying will happen tomorrow, I tried it tonight, but without adequate light and patience, I gave up.  I will have to learn to finesse my Jensen spinning wheel again.  Then, I had to find the pattern, as it was separated from the project (what a mistake, I always think that I will just be picking it up again in a day or so), luckily I had blogged about it here so know that it was the Pulelehua shawl.  Butterfly in Hawaiian.  Surprisingly I had purchased this pattern, which is unusual for me to not just knit something from a book that I own.  I am now anxious to ply the yarn and get this finished.  The pattern is gorgeous, which I am sure is why I chose it.

My other project the past couple of days, has been to finish this picnic blanket and napkins.  This was left when a friend of a friend passed away; all it really needed was the binding sewn on.  Of course I had to relearn how to do the mitered corner, as it has been years since I have sewn on a quilt binding.

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And here is always a helper at hand, wanted or not.

I have a couple of more free days before work and reality set back in.  This has been a nice respite, and I am happy that I am focusing on being productive with the time.

And staying toasty warm inside.  Hope everyone is safe in this cold weather.

Shawl 1

Pam and Barb from my SnB knitting group both made this shawl, Traffic Furniture – a really strange name for a pattern that I cannot quite figure out.  Basically, you start with a square and work out from that for awhile, then add extra increases at the corners to turn it into an octagon.  They had both used Malabrigo sock yarn, and I thought it the perfect opportunity to use up some of that lingering in my stash.  I loved the colors of Malabrigo when it first came out, and bought many different shades.  Then I knit a couple of pairs of socks with it, and they had holes in them within a very short period of time.  One was a favorite pair with spiders on it, they were beyond repair, so I reluctantly threw them away. Those I need to make again.  In the meantime, I had all of these beautiful colors, and I knew that I would not put the effort into making socks with them again.  I had thought of selling the yarn on Ravelry, but I would never get what I paid for it, plus all of the hassles.  So, this pattern encouraged me to use up that yarn.

Of course, I was winding the yarn and getting the pattern ready the morning that we were scheduled to go to California for a week.  This was the perfect pattern, as it was lots of mindless stockinette and garter stitch.  I chose these colors to take with me along with a beautiful variegated that I did not have a photo of:

The shawl proved to be the perfect item to work on while traveling, it was all on a circular needle, and easy to memorize.  You first knit the center square section, then pick up around that.  I used the magic loop technique, would have been tedious to try anything else, and double points would really not have worked.  It did remind me why I do not like working with the magic loop, I still do not understand why some people prefer that one over DPN’s for socks, but at least everyone has a choice, and the end product is basically the same.

I cose to end with an accent color of the purple

It didn’t look like much prior to blocking

But proved to be an interesting shape, this photo is a bit distorted, it is actually totally symmetrical

It was sent off to my daughter-in-law and I don’t have any photos of anyone wearing it.

The real thing?

When a local yarn store, Knot Just Knits, was going out of business last year I  bought only a few items.  One of them was Mimi Yarn by Lotus, and distributed by Trendsetter, advertised as 100% Mink.

Advertised.

Recently, I pulled out this yarn, wound a ball and decided to knit a shawl with it for a gift.  Part way through I was thinking that I would like another skein to allow me to make the shawl larger.   That’s when I found this:

mimi_recall

Apparently, there never was any Mink in this yarn, just wool, angora, rayon and nylon.  It is very soft, but not mink.  I was wondering how this could be at the given price.   Trendsetter was offering a rebate to your local yarn store (out of business) provided you sent back the original yarn and your receipt.  Who keeps yarn receipts?  So, without that I thought that I would most likely not get a good response from Trendsetter, and since I was already part way through my shawl, I opted to continue, and just kept weighing the yarn to make sure that I was going to have enough to finish.

Haurni is the pattern that I knit up. and luckily, the designer was very clear that when you finish Part A, Part B uses about 50% of the yarn.  Years ago I had knit this shawl, and remembered this part, I just was not certain how close it was going to be.  I was able to add an extra repeat in the shawl to make it a tad bit bigger.

The pattern is fun, well written, and easy to expand.  You can check out my previous version of this shawl HERE. and HERE, I had forgotten that I have made this twice before!!! And I did have enough yarn to finish, not a ton left, but not a scary nail biting finish.

The shawl really comes alive when it is blocked.   I had a specific person in mind for this, I will have to see how I like it when the blocking is finished.

This is a good blog post about the Fake Yarn.  Well, a country that poisons their own babies with tainted formula, our dogs with bad pet food, and substituting plastic for rice!  I am now even more committed to purchasing yarn that was first grown and spun in the US, and second from a reliable Scandinavian or European country.  Or back to spinning my own from fiber of local farmers, the best solution if I have the time.

Careful people, the USDA now allows all of our meat to be sent to China for processing.

This is gong to take awhile…

Half of the knitting is finished for the body of my new shawl, Smolder.  It has been great for travel, and spending time with friends knitting, as very little concentration is required.

I am happy with how the color combination turned out, the next step is to figure out the color for the attached iCord.

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My preference had always been the Fuchsia color when I started knitting this, and I think that it will have the greatest impact.

Working on this will require lots of patience.  Binding 2 pieces together with iCord is slow going.  I am happy with the result so far though.  iCord is reserved for working on at home, I still have the other 2 sections to keep me busy with straight knitting.

There are approximately 220 stitches on each diagonal, times 3.  Then there is the entire edge in iCord.

 

Finished and Donated

This shawl was actually all knit last summer as a charity project for Chicago’s Go Red, a Women’s Heart Health fundraiser.  It sat waiting to be blocked, and since they did not want the items until sometime in January, I saw no urgency to blocking it.  I love the pattern, and the color pink is so beautiful.  The first version that I made was gifted to my sister Diane, that was in a natural wool.  This is Merino and Silk and I extended the pattern by one repeat. Love them both.

Greta Garbo Shawl in Estonian knitting, pattern by Nancy Bush.

Blocking photos:

Greta Shawl Detail

Greta Shawl blocking

And me modeling the finished project!

Greta Shawl Finished

Epic?

This lovely yarn from Juniper Moon Farm that I purchased last week at the Knot Just Knits closeout sale was begging to be knit up.

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It was purchased with the intent of knitting something for the Women’s Heart Association annual fundraiser that my SnB group has been knitting for the past couple of years.  Last year I did not contribute, so thought that I should start early this year.  I chose to reknit the Greta Garbo shawl by Nancy Bush.  A couple of years ago I knit this and gave it to my sister Diane.

Since the Juniper yarn is a much finer gauge than I knit this with, I chose to add an additional repeat and use a smaller needle.  At first I just cast on an extra set of stitches to repeat the large motif on each side.  This shawl is started at the bottom right and left edges, so this meant casting on 475 stitches.  After knitting the first row, I realized that there was a problem with my methodology. The border repeat is a multiple of 14, and the large center motif is a multiple of 48.  Didn’t work out, so I kinked back 475 stitches, as I really did not want to cast on all over.  Then I had to redraft how the bottom portion would knit up at the beginning and the center.

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This yarn is so soft and lovely, 50% merino & 50% silk.  However, it is also a bit tedious to work with given this pattern, and I am nervous about the yarn slipping off the needles.  I am also hoping that the nupps will show prominently enough.  Currently they are a 5 stitch nupp, but I am considering switching to a 7 stitch nupp for the main part of the shawl.

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And, then again, I may knit something much simpler for the main part, I will see how the border goes, and how it looks.  This shawl will not be traveling with me, nor going to knitting group until it is finished.  I have it setting next to my comfy rocker in the living room, and there it will stay while I work on it slowly.  Currently it takes about 20 minutes to do a row, but 4 stitches are decreased every other row, so it incrementally gets faster.  I have been tearing my knitting stuff apart looking for the point protectors so that I can make sure that nothing slips off when I am not working on it.  May have to buy some new ones.

So, will this be an epic feat, or an epic failure?  I know that I will use life lines on this one!

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The Jury is Still Out

Remember how excited I was to knit up this shawl from the cover of Lovely Knitted Lace?  Well, it is finished, actually finished for a couple of weeks now.  Last week I was busy with summer Architecture camp for teens, and this week I am reeling from a really bad summer cold.  So bad in fact, that I did not even feel like knitting or spinning most of the time, and I have been home alone.   It was quite miserable.

Well, here is the shawl pre blocking:

And I was waiting to have a model to take photos of it, but then realized that I could model it and just use the self timer on my camera.  First, the shawl without the buttons closed, you can see how there is no shape to this, it really has to always be worn fully buttoned up.

And the completed shawl.  I was not looking great today, a weeks worth of head colds took its toll, so I artfully cropped my head out!

Wondering if maybe my torso is not long enough to carry this off.

 

I disagree with her directions for sewing the shawl up.  I would find the point for each of the arms to have the petal end right at the top of the wrist (5th one in from each front edge), and then sew the bottoms between to the required measurements so that it fits properly on your hips.

 

Pattern: Camellia Dolman
Pattern Source: Lovely Knitted Lace
Yarn: Helen’s Lace
Needles: US 3 & 5
Date Started: 3/28/14
Date Finished: 4/16/14
Finished Dimensions: Women’s large

Yup, another shawl

Currently I am knitting yet another shawl, but this one is with a twist, the shawl becomes a sweater.  It is from my new favorite book Lovely Knitted Lace by Brooke Nico.

Slowly I am knitting my way through this book, there are some great twists on lace and how to use it for wearable items.  The sweater shown here on the front, Camellia Dolman, is my newest project, it is basically a circular shawl that is knit back and forth to achieve edges that becomes the button band.

 

 

 

The Helen’s Lace yarn that I purchased at the Lorna’s Laces warehouse sale is being used.

 

This shawl had to be restarted as I did not read carefully and got almost through the first 1/2 of the chart when I realized that I was supposed to just purl back on the even # rows.  UGH!, but I ripped it all back and started over.  It took a long time for my brain to realize why this did not seem to be large enough for the shawl.  The yellow showed how far I was when I ripped back, the green highlighted area is my progress to date.

 

Not quite sure about this color for me, although I think that it will look great with white pants and jeans as a summer sweater.

Progress has been moving along nicely and I realized that the pattern was incorrect in a major way, it asked for 3,000 yards of 2 separate yarns (6,000 in total)…. in reality if you look at the breakdown, it is 1,500 yards of 2 different lace weight yarns, or 3,000 yards total.  This would have made a huge difference in my purchasing as 1,500 yards is a lot cheaper than 3,000 yards!  Now I even think that I could make this again with a handspun gradient, after I see if I like the fit of course.  The other errors in the pattern are that the increases are every 12th row, not every 6th row as stated.  The charts are correct, I am not sure about the written pattern as I do not use them.  Also, she neglects to tell you to bind off, I was wondering if the sweater was made by sewing live edges together, but could not figure out how to block the shawl prior to sewing if that were the case.

In spite of the lack of proper editing or pattern testing in this book, I love these patterns.  It just would be hard for a new lace knitter to figure out what is wrong without the corrections.